Most EU countries are failing to match the competitiveness of the US economy, and Europe is falling behind in its pledge to become the world's premier economic powerhouse by 2010, according to an independent report card released yesterday.
"While much has been achieved, numerous challenges remain and policy-makers in Europe will have to refocus their energies on accelerating the pace of reforms," said Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist of the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based foundation which prepared the 16-page report.
At their Lisbon Summit in 2000, European leaders agreed that they wanted to turn the EU into the world's most dynamic, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. But recent statistics show the EU has actually fallen behind the US economy in productivity.
"The 2010 goals are achievable and should now receive the same degree of attention as the completion of the internal market by 1992 did a decade and a half ago," Lopez-Claros added.
Although Denmark, Finland and Sweden are outperforming the US in many areas, others, particularly in Southern Europe, are falling further behind.
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